I am grateful to God for another year, for health and wholeness, for provision and protection, for family and friends, for faith and freedom. I am grateful for Thanksgiving hymns that express a heart of thankfulness, hymns like Come, Ye Thankful People, Come; We gather Together; and Faith of Our Fathers. We are so blessed to live in the United States of America. I am also grateful for and share the sentiments of songs like America, the Beautiful; My Country, ’Tis of Thee; all the verses of The Star Spangled Banner; God Bless the U.S.A.; and God Bless America.
I am thankful for:
A culture of life rather than death
A culture of truth rather than relativism
A culture of capitalism rather than socialism
A culture of individuality rather than collectivism
A culture that prizes traditional marriage and the family
A culture that appreciates history rather than cancel culture
A culture of the rule of law rather than the tyranny of the majority
A culture that appreciates Liberty, In God We Trust, and E Pluribus Unum
A culture that reflects a Judeo-Christian value system and individual conscience
A culture that values and rewards hard work, personal discipline, and the Golden Rule
A culture that values common sense over wokeness, expert opinion, and political correctness
A culture that values one race—the human race—over skin color, ethnicity, national origin or religion
A culture that thrives on individual self-government, voluntarism, and limited, decentralized government
This is the America our Pilgrim fathers, founding fathers, and patriots envisioned and for which they sacrificed. This is the America for which our veterans fought and died. This is the America that past generations have sought to pass on to future generations. This is the American Dream. This is my America. And this continues to be my prayer for America.
O beautiful for pilgrim feet whose stern impassioned stress
A thoroughfare of freedom beat across the wilderness!
America! America! God mend thine every flaw,
Confirm thy soul in self-control, thy liberty in law!
(America, the Beautiful – verse 2)
We all do extol Thee, Thou leader triumphant,
And pray that Thou still our defender wilt be.
Let Thy congregation escape tribulation;
Thy name be ever praised! O Lord, make us free!
(We Gather Together – verse 3)
Come, ye thankful people, come, raise the song of harvest home;
All is safely gathered in, ere the winter storms begin.
God our Maker doth provide for our wants to be supplied;
Come to God’s own temple, come, raise the song of harvest home.
(Come, Ye Thankful People, Come – verse 1)
Our father’s God, to Thee, Author of liberty, to Thee we sing.
Long may our land be bright with freedom’s holy light;
Protect us by Thy might, Great God, our King!
(My Country ’Tis of Thee – verse 4)
O! thus be it ever when free men shall stand
Between their loved homes and the foe’s desolation;
Bless’d with victory and peace, may our Heav’n-rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation
Then conquer we must, for our cause it is just —
And this be our motto — “In God is our trust!”
And the Star-spangled Banner in triumph shall wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.
(Star-Spangled Banner – verse 4)